KΑΣΣ_ΑΝΔΡΑ

Joint premiere at Kyiv's two leading national theatres reimagines
an ancient prophecy as a story of women, memory, and war
Lesya Ukrainka National Academic Drama Theatre and Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theatre will jointly premiere ΚΑΣΣ_ΑΝΔΡΑ, a new drama by Grzegorz Jarzyna and Roman Pawłowski-Felberg, this autumn in Kyiv.

She speaks when everyone is silent.
She remembers when others want to forget.
ΚΑΣΣΑΝΔΡΑ. Will you listen to her?

ΚΑΣΣ_ΑΝΔΡΑ is a classical yet urgently contemporary story of women's experience of war — the untold pain of those who, against their will, fall under the rule of conquerors, and the quiet, persistent power to preserve one's own identity even when it cannot repel enemy force.

Drawing on Homer's Iliad, Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Jean-Paul Sartre's adaptation of Euripides' The Trojan Women, and Lesya Ukrainka's own dramatic poem, the production reimagines the myth of Cassandra — the Trojan princess and priestess of Apollo whose prophecies of disaster went unheeded until it was too late, and who, after Troy's fall, was taken as Agamemnon's concubine only to witness his downfall with her own eyes.

The action unfolds across two timeframes at once: the present day and the mythological past. They converge in the character of Cass, a woman from a contemporary conflict zone who wakes one day with no memory of who she is. Her partner Agam, an influential politician, enlists psychotherapist dr Apolon to help restore her identity. Yet the version of events he presents is riddled with gaps and contradictions. Cass's doubts deepen through unsettling dreams in which she becomes the mythical Cassandra, daughter of the Trojan king Priam, abducted after Troy's fall by the Greek commander Agamemnon. As she uncovers the truth about her past, Cass faces a choice that will change both her life and the future of her world.

Director's statement
"For millennia, one Cassandra after another has заwarned humanity against the tragedy of war — and their voices have gone unheard. Again and again, we suppress traumatic experience, forget the victims, and reproduce the same mechanisms of violence," says director Grzegorz Jarzyna. "In our version, the contemporary Cassandra becomes a keeper of memory: she remembers what others try to erase. She demands truth and retribution, because only truth can break the cycle of violence".

At the heart of the play are women affected by war — carrying fear, humiliation, and psychological wounds. “Women rarely start wars, but they bear their most devastating consequences. Their sacrifice remains unspoken: no monuments are built to them, and they are not celebrated in songs and poems as male heroes are”.

ΚΑΣΣΑΝΔΡΑ gives them a voice.